While on the Darmouth College football team, Charles Starrett was hired to play a football extra in The Quarterback (1926). Impressed by the job, Starrett got the acting bug and next went into vaudeville, then regional stage work and finally to Broadway. Spotted by a Paramount talent scout, Starrett was signed to play the romantic lead in Fast and Loose(1930). For the next couple of years he would be busy, but his roles were unremarkable. In 1933 he would be one of the people who helped organize the Screen Actors Guild. In 1936 he would sign with Columbia and over the next 16 years star in 115 westerns. After playing assorted sheriffs and rangers, he would become well known for his role as the "Durango Kid".